


Dark Believers

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 08:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "One kid out of probably a billion or more (not really sure, but it’s a ton) still believes? Really?I have headcanon for why Sophie and other young children didn’t; they just accept it as fact, there’s no doubt and thus it’s not true ‘belief’. You don’t 'believe’ in elephants even if you’ve never seen pictures or the real deal because you don’t doubt their existence.However, there’s got to be at least a few other kids Jamie’s age who were equally ardent believers. Why weren’t there? Fix it, please!"Jamie wasn’t the last believer. In the end, he wasn’t a believer at all. His light came from a different quality. (Uses a headcanon about Sandy retreating into Jamie’s mind after getting shot.)





	Dark Believers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr 6/30/2014.

“How did Pitch manage to snuff out so much belief so fast?” Jack asks, a few months after Easter, once everyone’s told their stories about those days, filled in all the gaps. North had even translated for the yetis who had witnessed Pitch’s dance on the globe. “I mean, shouldn’t they have been holding onto belief in Santa? Why was Jamie the last light?”   
  
The other Guardians look around at each other from the comfortable chairs in North’s library. “Jack’s got a point,” Bunny says, shifting to the edge of his seat. “Much as I hate to admit it in regards to you, North. There’s no reason why the kids shouldn’t’ve kept believing in you. And Tooth—well, we didn’t leave any teeth under pillows, now did we?”  
  
Sandy raises his hand. I know, he tells them.  
  
“But—but Sandy, you—you weren’t, uh,  _there_ ,” Jack says after a long moment of silence.  
  
Yes, I was. I was there where it counted, he signs. What you saw happen after I was hit by the arrow wasn’t death. Not like you think of it. But I had to retreat.  
  
North’s puzzled frown is the first to clear. He may not understand everything about Sandy, but he does understand the workings of battles. “And during that retreat, you discovered why the children stopped believing?”  
  
Sandy nods. I was able to understand what was happening because I retreated into Jamie’s mind.  
  
He pauses and looks around, checking to see that they’ve understood him, that they accept this.  
  
It takes less time than he thought it would before they’re ready to hear more. Maybe that’s one of the perks of being known as someone who can come back from the dead.  
  
I was able to protect Jamie from within, he continues, but I could also tell what kind of attacks Pitch used. He clasps his hands together for a moment. Pitch, for all that he is, isn’t capable of destroying belief. Not inherently. The more he acted as the Boogeyman, the more belief in him, and, inevitably, by extension, us, would grow.   
  
He could take action, like stealing the teeth and smashing the Easter eggs, that superficially damaged belief, but those actions didn’t affect our centers and they didn’t strengthen him. Recovery wouldn’t have been difficult, if not for Pitch’s only real weapon. Fear.   
  
The sand stills above Sandy’s head for a moment.   
  
Jamie was the last light, he signs, finally. But he did stop believing, for a moment. But you all still had plenty of other children believing in you then.  
  
They’re not going to like this, Sandy knows.  
  
They believed in you, he signs. But Pitch’s nightmares made them afraid of you. He looks solemnly out at the others. We’re very powerful, you know. If we used our powers selfishly, vindictively, irresponsibly, we would be far more terrible than Pitch, lying about our light, while he would be at least honest in his darkness.  
  
It may have felt the same, but he didn’t take away your believers. He made them believe different things of you. So Jamie, as the last light…I couldn’t keep him believing, at that last moment before you arrived, Jack. But he was still the last light because I helped him to at least believe that the Guardians, no matter how real you were, were good.  
  
“Did Pitch know he was doing this?” Tooth asks, he voice barely louder than the crackle of the fire.  
  
I don’t know how conscious he was of the neatness of his plan, Sandy admits. Because, you see, the nightmares he spread about all of us…were mostly his own.  
  
The settling of the logs in the fireplace remains the only sound for a long time afterward.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> tejoxys said: Oooh, this is interesting. Sandy would be really good at telling ghost stories. o.o


End file.
